Agilent and Shimadzu to offer chromatography system cross-compatibility

Agilent and Shimadzu have announced they will be releasing new drivers to improve the cross-compatibility between each others' gas chromatography instruments and data systems.

The move will make it possible for customers of both companies to achieve chromatography instrument control via the other manufacturer's chromatography data systems (CDSs), meaning users have greater freedom of choice when investing in new technology.

Agilent has released drivers for the Shimadzu GC-2010, GC-2010 Plus and GC-2014, integrating with its OpenLAB CDS, while Shimadzu has released drivers to control the Agilent 6890, 6850, 7820 and 7890 GC instruments via its own LabSolutions CDS.

This will help to preserve customers' investments in workflows and operating procedures and comes as part of a collaboration between the firms that was first announced in May 2013.

Bruce von Herrmann, vice-president and general manager of Agilent's software and informatics business, said: "To reduce costs and enhance the customer experience, we are working with other manufacturers such as Shimadzu to enable full and reliable control of lab instrumentation from any CDS."

The firm recently separated into two distinct organisations – Agilent and Keysight Technologies, with the latter to become a fully independent electronic measurement business in November 2014.